I was going to call this a “Metroid Prime 2 Review,” but seeing as all I do is bitch and moan and then bitch and moan some more, I decided against it. I’m sorry it’s so painfully dry in the beginning, but it gets better as it goes on, honest. In related news, I’ve only proof-read the first five or so (very boring) paragraphs, so best of luck to all who dare read on.

Metroid Prime’s greatest success and its greatest failure, for better and for worse, is the fact that it successfully translates the 2D gameplay of the Metroid series into 3D, and does so through a first-person perspective at that. While surprising and new in 2002, the game’s sequel, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, fails to impress as its most dramatic feature, a theoretically interesting light/dark mechanic merely draws attention to the original’s greatest flaws and to the fact that Echoes does little more than echo Prime. Both games do little to expand upon or evolve beyond the original Metroid formula, and though now hidden behind an admittedly gorgeous three-dimensional mask, the core gameplay is stale, boring, and out of date.

Though Metroid Prime’s move to 3D brought some interesting new features to the series, such as deeper, more exciting combat, and complex three dimensional puzzles and world features such as half-pipes and spider ball tracks, it did little to stray from Metroid’s root gameplay. The game still featured the big boss battles, backtracking, and multitude of hidden power-ups the series was known for. The game was unquestionably Metroid, but many of the series’ flaws became hugely amplified when directly translated from their two-dimensional existence into a three-dimensional world. For one thing, the series’ inherent backtracking and exploration became far more tedious when traversing large, complex 3D environments rather than the simpler 2D levels of older Metroid titles. It simply took far more time to travel through the 3D world of Tallon IV than it ever took to get from place to place on Zebes or SR388.

Additionally, backtracking became even more of a chore when dealing with constantly-respawning enemies. Though it was less of a problem to deal with the game’s easily ignorable wildlife which did little more than follow pre-designed patterns (which begs the question, why are they even there?), the constant respawning of the game’s more complicated foes, such as space pirates and chozo ghosts, was downright annoying. The fact that the same batch of enemies were always present every time you entered a room added one extra layer of hassle in the already more time-consuming exploration and re-exploration of this 3D world, especially given the more complex nature of the combat when compared to Metroid games of the past. Enemies respawned in previous Metroid games because they didn’t slow down progress, because combat was a much quicker, simpler affair and because the screw attack (which is not present in Metroid Prime) allowed players to easily dispatch of annoying enemies when re-exploring areas later in the game. However, in Metroid Prime they simply work as an exciting element the first time through a new area, and as an annoying distraction on every subsequent visit.

One of Prime’s most prevalent new features was the addition of three additional visors which enhanced vision in some way, of which the scan visor saw the most use. While Metroid, Metroid 2, and Super Metroid (and Metroid Fusion) consisted of levels built from 2D blocks with meaningful symbols which corresponded to which of Samus’ power-ups were capable of destroying them printed on their sides, such a feature would have been mostly-ridiculous in the realistic, three-dimensional environments of Metroid Prime. In Metroid Prime, it is therefore impossible to know what elements of the environments are interactive or even how to interact with them. Retro solved this rather complicated little problem with the scan visor which does exactly what its title suggest: it lets you scan things. By using the scan visor, objects which offer some degree of interactivity are highlighted a certain color. By then targeting them as though they were enemies, such objects are scanned, revealing backstory, enemy weaknesses, and clueing the player into what power-ups are used to destroy which objects. Essentially, the scan visor strips the game of its fancy coating and reveals the block-destroying gameplay behind the curtain. In many ways, the scan visor reveals Prime’s greatest flaw: for all the exciting 3D graphics and interesting new features, the game is a Metroid game at heart and is a direct translation that doesn’t function nearly as well in 3D as it does in 2D. However, the extra, pointless effort required because of the respawning enemies, large three-dimensional environment, and the scan visor itself were not enough to ruin the game; they are merely the unfortunate side effects of directly sticking a recipe for 2D success into a 3D universe while making minimal changes to compensate for this added dimension.

In Echoes, however, the new light/dark mechanic not only complicates gameplay, it further amplifies the problems generated during Metroid’s direct translation to 3D. Metroid Prime 2 takes place on Aether, a world which has been torn into a light and dark version of itself. This additional dark world makes backtracking, a major feature of Metroid gameplay, even more tedious than it was in Prime, as half of the areas that players are backtracking through exist in two palette-swapped realities: the light and the dark. Therefore, it becomes extremely difficult to navigate through the game’s world without frequent use of the game’s map, as only a little more than half of the Aether’s environments are unique. Additionally, players can only travel back and forth between the light and dark worlds at certain points, either through alien-constructed portals or tears in reality. This simply adds one more unnecessary step to the backtracking process, as not only do players have to backtrack through massive, 3D environments, only half of which are unique, but they have to backtrack through massive, 3D environments just to backtrack through the other half of the massive, 3D environments. Additionally, three of the light world’s areas are almost aesthetically identical and the entirety of the dark world shares similar visual elements, further frustrating movement through the world. Unlike in Prime, where it simply took a long time to get from place to place, the additional light/dark mechanic and the limited aesthetic palette work to make getting from place to place not only time consuming but frustrating and make the game’s map not just a useful tool but a necessity.

Additionally, the light/dark mechanic influences combat too, and it does so negatively. Once again nearly all enemies respawn, including complicated enemies which can require a great deal of work to overcome. However, because the game’s light and dark beams, which deal extra damage to dark and light enemies, respectively, have a limited ammo supply and because ammo is almost always scarce, players rarely have the most effective tools to deal with the enemies at hand. Instead, most of the game is spent using the standard power beam and Samus’ supply of missiles, effectively making the light/dark mechanic a moot point with respect to combat which does little else than act as an annoyance.

The 3D world has once again provided the opportunity for Retro to create ridiculously-complex puzzles, and create them they have. However, these puzzles, which often involve liberal use of the morph ball and its accessories (bombs, power bombs, spider ball tracks), rarely reward the player with anything more than additional missiles. Why? Because “puzzles” in previous Metroid games rewarded players with additional missiles. However, these “puzzles” in the 2D games served more as exploration-rewards and most of the time came from just blowing up a wall or curling up in a statue’s hands. The amount of work Metroid Prime 2 asks players to perform just to see their maximum missile capacity increase by five often borders on ridiculous. Retro obviously has a tremendous knack for puzzle design (and level design, on the singular scale), but they seem too trapped within the confines of what it means to be a Metroid game.

In fact, all of these problems stem from the fact that Retro is too literally translating the 2D gameplay of the Metroid series into 3D. Once again, the scan visor returns to reveal the game beneath the game and show players the symbols on the now-3D blocks. However, the game’s two new visors, and one (of two) of its new power-ups are blatantly useless. The Metroid series has always been a series of finding keys to doors baring progress, only the doors are usually symboled-blocks and the keys are usually missiles or bombs of some sort. In Metroid Prime 2, the keys are literally keys and the doors are literally doors. The new sonic visor literally allows players to see the keys to locked doors. That’s it. Some doors are locked by sound-producing devices and in order to unlock them players need the sonic visor. The seeker missiles are used to open doors – literal doors – which need seeker missiles to unlock them. However, both of these meaninglessly trivial power-ups pale in comparison to the sheer useless glory of the dark visor.

The dark visor let’s you see enemies. Sure, it makes them bright and red, but chances are nobody was having much trouble seeing them without the visor’s aid. There are a total of two enemies in the game which require the dark visor in order to be seen, and they are merely two different variations on the same enemy and they rarely show up. The dark visor is also used in two puzzles, total, to see invisible platforms. It’s main use is in what has become Nintendo’s patented 11th hour fetch quest, as in order to do the fetching players must use the dark visor to shoot a “dark cache” and then… shoot it some more with the combat visor.

These power-ups seem to exist just to fill quotas and because Metroid games have power-ups. Retro doesn’t seem to care if they’re useful, fun, or interesting or not, simply that they’re there. This stem’s from the Metroid Prime series’ largest problem: the series is comprised of Metroid games. The Metroid formula still works brilliantly in 2D as last year’s Zero Mission so eloquently demonstrated, but in 3D it leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of its basic game mechanics don’t function nearly as well in three dimensions as they do in two, but Retro has performed such literal translations of the Metroid series with the Prime games that such features are present any way. The fact that the scan visor, which strips away the layer of shine and finish Retro has covered the basic Metroid gameplay with is even necessary is indicative of a larger problem. Retro knows that this formula doesn’t work as well in 3D as it does in 2D, but it presses on regardless, providing players with literal keys to literal doors and providing the scan visor to highlight the literal doors for the not-so-literal keys. The Metroid Prime games are what they are because they are little more than slightly-updated versions of the older games in the Metroid series.

And this really isn’t a good thing. After two games, I find the 3D Metroid gameplay virtually unplayable. I doubt I would buy a third Metroid Prime game without first seeing massive changes to the way such a game would play. I played the first Metroid Prime game in under a week because it was Metroid and it was 3D and despite its obvious short comings it was surprising, unexpected, and genuinely interesting. It took me nearly five months to play through Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, because the basic Metroid formula, which isn’t particularly suited for 3D, was disgusted even more poorly in Prime 2 than in Prime. And in a way, this has ruined Prime for me, made it nearly unplayable, because all I see now is a Metroid game that begs to be 2D. If Nintendo wants people to continue caring about the Metroid franchise (because Prime 2 sold much worse than Prime, though there are admittedly other reasons for that), they need to look beyond the franchise’s past for inspiration. The Metroid universe is incredibly rich and remains mostly ignored. Hopefully the next Metroid game will be something more than a Metroid game.